Ultimate Custom Clock Widget (UCCW) is one of the most powerful and versatile Android widgets. It’s free with ads in Google Play, although you can make a $5 in-app purchase to remove them.

Despite its name, UCCW can be configured to support almost any Android app or activity, not just clocks. It has two basic features:

1. a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor for designing your own UCCW widget.
2. integration with a wide range of UCCW skins and themes from Google Play.

Most likely, you’re here to find out how to implement someone else’s UCCW skin or theme through the UCCW app (i.e., feature #2). A successful implementation may look like these examples:

PlayBar skin for UCCW. Running on Jelly Bean 4.2.2 w/Nova Launcher Prime and PlayCon icon theme.

UCCW w/ShadowClock skin. Running on Jellybean 4.2.2 w/Nova Launcher Prime and Lustre icon theme.

Whether you’re setting up the perfect clock widget or just trying to impress others with your fancy home screen, UCCW is worth playing around with. Here’s how to set it up in less than five minutes:

1. Download UCCW from Google Play

UCCW is free to download here. Consider a $5 donation to remove the ads.

The default UCCW screen.

2. Search for “UCCW” in Google Play and download a UCCW skin or theme that you like

The search should return a variety of UCCW-compatible skins and themes. They’ll appear in Google Play as apps, but they’re essentially just plugins for UCCW. For example, the PlayBar theme in the first screenshot above requires UCCW.

A sampling of downloadable UCCW skins.

3. Create a widget anywhere on your screen

Select Widgets -> UCCW in your launcher to get started. After that, select a widget size (unlike widgets associated with apps like Google+, UCCW can be implemented in many default sizes), and then select a skin or theme. Any UCCW skins and themes you download should appear in the UCCW app. You may have to scroll down to see them all:

Choosing from among PlayBar skins for UCCW.

4. Create and lock hotspots

Depending on what UCCW skin or theme you use, you may have the option to edit the widget’s hotspots. A hotspot is simply a part of the widget that can be configured to open an Android app when tapped.

For example, the widgets from the very first screenshot in this post all redirect to their titular apps (“Chrome” opens Chrome, and so on). You can edit the hotspot and link it to any app that you want. Afterward, you’ll need to go to the settings menu inside the UCCW app and enable Hotspot Mode so that tapping the widget does what you want it to do instead of sending you back to the UCCW editor.

Editing the Chrome widget in the PlayBar skin for UCCW. Note that both color and hotspot are editable.

Adjusting the hotspot for the Chrome widget.

Use Hotspot Mode to lock the color/hotspot changes you’ve made to your UCCW widget.

5. Finish Up

Simply tap the screen as per the instructions to add the finished widget.

Touch to finish placing the newly created UCCW widget.

Placing a finished Facebook UCCW widget on a home screen.